The present disclosure relates generally to electron and hole mobility in integrated circuit device manufacturing, and more specifically to dual fin integration for electron and hole mobility enhancement.
In solid-state physics, the electron mobility characterizes how quickly an electron can move through a metal or semiconductor, when pulled by an electric field. In semiconductors, there is an analogous quantity for holes, called hole mobility. The term carrier mobility refers in general to both electron and hole mobility in semiconductors.
Electron and hole mobility are special cases of electrical mobility of charged particles under an applied electric field. For example, when an electric field E is applied across a piece of material, the electrons respond by moving with an average velocity called the drift velocity.
Conductivity is proportional to the product of mobility and carrier concentration. For example, the same conductivity could come from a small number of electrons with high mobility for each, or a large number of electrons with a small mobility for each. For semiconductors, the behavior of transistors and other devices can be very different depending on whether there are many electrons with low mobility or few electrons with high mobility. Therefore, mobility is a very important parameter for semiconductor materials. Almost always, higher mobility leads to better device performance, with other things being equal.